


sometimes we ain't meant to be free

by pxint



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Villainizing The NHL, almost a retirement fic, this takes place over the span of many years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 08:06:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17018901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pxint/pseuds/pxint
Summary: When they play for the first time, after the Jets sent the Devs back home in too few games to make it feel like anything important, something unrecognizable flashes over Nolan’s face. Nico can feel it too, somewhere in his stomach. Where it’s hard to accept this again, getting back into the swing of thingsBut that’s the game.





	sometimes we ain't meant to be free

**Author's Note:**

> fair warning: this is a fic abt the nhl being shitty
> 
> title from "i am" by jorja smith

It doesn’t get easier. 

It’s just. In a world full of whispered names and lacklustre news, a world where you can never really be too sure if there’s a camera on you, a world where you feel shame for wanting privacy, Nico doesn’t get those little moments. 

He can’t just sit out on an emerald lawn with the sprinkler running, an old magazine in his hands, feeling the spray wash over him in small waves. He can’t just stare up into the night sky, a sky filled with faint speckles of stars, and forget everything else. He can’t enjoy a quiet night without things getting in the way, not anymore. Because he doesn’t get to forget things, he doesn’t get to leave things behind and just _be_. Not here. 

Not in a locker room full of nerves and intensity, in a unnamed city with faceless fans ready to tear them apart, or a team hungry for blood. And Nico can sit here wondering, not knowing if tonight’ll be the night he scores a hatty or tears his ACL. If tonight will be his last game, or the beginning of a legacy.

So, his stomach clenching and his mind refusing to sit in one place, he ties his skates and steels himself.

-

His draft day is nothing but a memory, something that could be just as easily wiped from his memory as it had been settled in there. 

There‘s no more lingering evidence that it had even happen, none of the butterflies Nico used to get in his stomach, or the tiny smile on his face when he woke up in the morning thinking he plays in the Big Show. That he’s finally here. He made it. 

Back then, Nico didn’t know making it meant leaving everything else behind. That he’d sacrifice the rest of his life for a small state on the coast of the USA, a country he’s been forced to bend backwards for. Torn from his Swiss heritage and molded into this perfect hockey boy persona, that soft spoken kid ~~from Switzerland~~ who just wanted to play his game. 

His draft day is nothing but a memory, like everything else about him. 

The accent filed down and softened into something he wouldn’t recognize years ago, hometown pride that he doesn’t get to wear anymore, and everything that made him _him_. And not just another kid from Europe somehow “saved” by the west, playing in the NHL, given the so-called freedom he’d never gotten before. 

It’s all bullshit.

-

He’s the only Swiss player on the Devils, _still_ on the Devils. Given countless chances to leave, to take on something else and try something new, yet never going. Because he’s built friends in teammates and a home in New Jersey, even if it doesn’t quite matter. Not in the eyes of a GM who will trade him anywhere. Who’ll send him to the desert, or a city where winters bite, and Nico’s never fucking safe. 

He never gets a chance to breathe in New Jersey, never allowed the privilege of his own space. Not without cameras in his face, and microphones as far as the eye can see, because he’s the only Swiss-born player for fucking miles. And it’s such a luxury for these people, _reporters_ , to interview Nico like he’s a child. Because he’s not from here. 

It makes his stomach twist with guilt and frustration, when it used to make his chest swell with pride. Before it’d gotten stomped all over. And that’s just it. 

That’s how these things go, and he’s been in the league long enough to know it by heart. 

-

Nico remembers when hockey felt like more of a sport than a fucking scheme. Before it turned into something to boost TV ratings and merchandise sales, before it wasn’t just manipulation, before there were whispers behind everything that happened.

And he’s supposed to turn a blind eye to all of that, pretending the lock outs weren’t just a set up to make fans appreciate the game more, pretending he’s still guileless, still lost in the dream. Before everything else came crashing down around him. But the other shoe always drops, and sometimes things _are_ too good to be true. 

He’s learned not to take things at face value anymore, not when it goes this deep. 

Nico just keeps his head up, his stick down, and plays hockey. Plays his lovely game with a nostalgic ache squeezing his heart.

-

He gets used to it, without a doubt. 

It’s a lot easier when he’s dealing with his own shit. With contract talk, and the deadline, and another long, unrewarding playoff season coming to an abrupt close. 

Sometimes, Nico just wants to leave. When things gets hard, he considers it. Just to give up and forget it. 

But at this point, all he has is hockey. Without it, he’s nothing. He’d be no more than lonely and sad, holed up in a condo somewhere back home, trying to fit back into his element and realizing he can’t. Not after years of being conditioned to an NHL environment, after being roped in, and in, and in, for so long. 

So he sticks through it. Because he made a sacrifice. He signed his name, and he isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to part with this. 

-

Nico remembers why, when he’s in Winnipeg, why he hasn’t left yet. 

Because Nolan hasn’t given it up yet either, Nolan’s still playing, still cutting through the ice in a blue and white jersey. Colours that still feel so new on him, but old enough that it isn’t abrasive when Nico sees it. 

His draft day is a memory, just like Nolan in that stark orange that didn’t quite suit him. Colours that, back then, Nico thought he’d be wearing for the rest of his life. Assigned to a city practically walking distance within his own, and Nico thought maybe, maybe. 

But Nolan packed his things and left, to a team that wanted him, to _home_ , and Nico’s known since he signed back in Winnipeg that it’s where Nolan would stay for the rest of his career. Glued to his city with a heart big enough to love every inch of it. 

When they play for the first time, after the Jets sent the Devs back home in too few games to make it feel like anything important, something unrecognizable flashes over Nolan’s face. Nico can feel it too, somewhere in his stomach. Where it’s hard to accept this again, getting back into the swing of things 

But that’s the game.

-

Sometimes, Nico hears whispers he wishes he didn’t. Things about not being good enough, about not working hard enough, and it’s what gets to him sometimes. 

It’s stuff like that that lodges itself deep into his chest and doesn’t let him forget that this isn’t supposed to be easy. That he’s a fucking pawn now, and he’s here to entertain. That if he isn’t good enough, he’ll be dropped. It’s as simple as that. 

Only that it isn’t. 

Because there’s so much more that’ll factor into that. If the coach doesn’t like him, if he’s not tying to bend to the rules that’ve been set for him, if there’s shit in the locker room. It’s not always skill based, and there’s always the chance he’ll be scratched if he doesn’t keep his head up.

His head up, and his stick down. Like it’s always been. 

-

His draft day is a memory, something to bitterly reminisce about. Something lost in the years that have passed. Years gone cupless that are nothing but losses, losses, losses, and it’s just what it is. 

Nico wishes he had that blank slate again, that easy mentality, the cameras flashing in his face, a crisp new Devils jersey hanging from his chest and a hat on his head. When he had New Jersey in his palm with everything to prove. 

When Nolan was a little closer. 

“I don’t even remember the last time we did this,” Nolan tells him helplessly, his feet kicked over the side of Nico’s couch. They’re both drunk out of their fucking minds, and Nico can barely process anything but the answers that flood through his head.

“Forever ago,” he says, blinking up at the ceiling. “Before everything else.”

_Everything else_ is when Nolan left. And Nolan knows that, Nico thinks. At least in the way he reaches out and settles his fingers over Nico’s.

“I know,” he whispers, and, “I’m sorry.”

Nico doesn’t let himself cry.

-

When Taylor announces his retirement, Nico swears he can feel the floor crumbling underneath him.

And, after all this time just losing people, he’s learnt how to be happier for them. He knows how not to let his voice crack when he talks to Taylor over the phone, telling him it was a good choice to make. That he deserves this more than anybody else.

All his career, Taylor’s been the only one to guide him. He’s been there for him, he _was_ there for him, and Nico forgot this was going to happen. That he’d actually lose it.

In his apartment, the door locked and the curtains drawn, Nico does let himself cry. 

He cries until he‘s hollowed out, and that’s the most human he’s felt in a long time. 

-

It doesn’t get easier.

But it gets better, maybe. 

When Nico takes a hit that throws him off balance, one that sends him to the ice in a way that definitely doesn’t look pretty. 

And that’s lights out on his career, he knows it before he’s in the trainer’s room, dizzy on PK’s and trying to focus on what’s being said to him.

It’s obvious to anyone that had seen it, that hockey won’t come to him like it always had, and part of him thinks it’s okay to let it go. He could be ready. 

-

_come to winnipeg_ Nolan texts him after the news breaks free. _i miss you_

And, all in itself, Nico thinks that might just be the push he needs. That, right now, he can let himself have this, if everything else is off the counter. 

So with all the hope in the world and his heart on his sleeve, Nico sends him _just for you_ and he smiles, and smiles.


End file.
